READ
One thing I’m enjoying about this
reading-the-world project is that it’s nudging me to read international authors
I’ve always heard about, but have never read. In the case of Japan, I finally
read a book by bestselling author Haruki Murakami – Norwegian Wood.
As the novel opens, 37-year-old
Toru Watanabe is on a plane that has just landed, and music begins to pipe
through the airplane speakers. The song that’s playing is a version of the
Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” which unsettles him because it brings memories flooding
back from many years ago.
“Norwegian Wood” had been the
favorite song of Naoko, a girl he knew in high school. Naoko had been the
girlfriend of Toru’s best friend Kizuki, and the three of them were inseparable.
Then, inexplicably, Kizuki committed suicide. Bound together in their grief, Toru
and Naoko continue to see each other, even after they head off to different
colleges following their high school graduation. They are comfortable when they
talk to each other and they are comfortable in their silences. On the night of
her twentieth birthday, Naoko talks for hours about her life, but without ever
mentioning Kizuki. When Toru tells her
it’s time for him to go home, she cries and he’s unable to leave her. He spends
the night, and they end up making love.
When Toru tries to call Naoko
after that night, there’s no answer. The next weekend, he goes to her apartment,
only to find that she has moved out. He sends letters to her at her parents’
home, but it’s months before he receives a reply. She tells him that she’s
taking a leave of absence from college and checking herself into a sanatorium
to focus on her mental health. She promises to let him know when she’s prepared
to talk to him again.
In the meantime, Toru’s life at
college continues. He becomes friends with an older student with whom he bonds
over their shared appreciation for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The
Great Gatsby. Nagasawa is smart, popular, and a womanizer, which makes for
interesting evenings for Toru when they go out drinking together. He also meets
a girl named Midori, who has a boyfriend but enjoys spending time with Toru.
As Naoko’s mental health begins to
improve, she invites Toru to visit her at the sanatorium. He goes to see her
for the weekend, spending time with her and her roommate Reiko, a woman in her
late thirties who plays songs on her guitar, including Naoko’s favorite “Norwegian Wood." He enjoys his visit, and continues to write letters to both women
after he returns to college.
Ultimately, Toru’s feelings for both
Naoko and Midori create conflict for him. He feels committed to Naoko,
especially in her fragile emotional state, but craves the fun and the normalcy
of his growing connection with Midori.
Although Toru is the narrator, it
seemed to me that his character was mostly reflected in his relationships with
other people. It was difficult to get a sense of who he was otherwise. He
studied, worked, spent time with his friends, and wrote a surprising number of
letters, which I found unusual. Even considering that the plot took place
before the advent of emails and texting, I couldn’t imagine a young man in his
late teens/early twenties sitting down and writing so many letters. During one
particularly difficult period, when he is unable to see any of his friends in
person, he reflects that “(i)t was as if I were writing letters to hold together
the pieces of my crumbling life.” Both a coming-of-age novel and a love story, Norwegian
Wood was an interesting look at life for a young person in Japan.
There were several dishes
mentioned in Norwegian
Wood that I could have veganized for this post – ramen, sushi, sukiyaki
– but I chose a dish that I learned how to make recently, tempura. At one point
in the book, Toru says: “In the evening, Midori did some shopping in the
neighborhood and made dinner. We ate tempura and rice with green peas at the
kitchen table, and washed it all down with beer.” The recipe I used for the
batter was an adaptation from Chef Jose Andres’ book, Vegetables Unleashed. His
recipe called for equal parts flour and light beer, but I thought the batter
was too thick, so I added more beer until it reached the consistency of pancake
batter. I dipped the vegetables – purple sweet potatoes, Japanese eggplant, cauliflower,
green beans, and mushrooms – into the batter and then deep-fried them in a pot
of hot vegetable oil. It was great!
GIVE
A shocking number of characters in
their teens and twenties committed suicide in Norwegian Wood, so
when I checked the GlobalGiving
website for projects in Japan, I looked for one providing mental health
services. I found one offering support for youth experiencing mental
health challenges in the time of COVID-19. According to the project
description, “In Japan, more people died from suicide in October than from
COVID in all of 2020.” The goal of this project is to train sixty crisis
lifeline support workers over the next twelve months and to ensure that these
resources reach the young people who need them. More information about this
project is available at Support
for Youth Mental Health during COVID - GlobalGiving.
NEXT STOP: JORDAN
